Inspired from youth by Albert Camus' sense of the Absurd, I try to be a voice for REASON in the growing darkness and moral insanity of global capitalism .
Readers of Edith Wharton's book " House of Mirth " might find very instructive about the New Feminism, Third Wave Feminism, an old but still very relevant essay ( 1970 ) by democratic socialist writer Irving Howe titled " The Middle Class Mind of Kate Millet " . Howe was critical of Millet's book " Sexual Politics " in which he explored the " Feminine Mystique " image of women in literature. Irving Howe's scathing criticism of " bourgeois feminism " strike this democratic socialist as quite sound . The same criticism - influenced by traditional Marxist social philosophy - clearly applies to the vicious , fatuous " identity politics " of " liberal " , " progressive " Democrats today. It is silly to act as if the Civil Rights Movement was a failure and racism is programmed into the very DNA of white people. Way back in 1965 Black Muslim leader Malcolm X made a connection between racism and capitalism, between racism and imperialism. Marxism explained how the special oppression and exploitation of women ( as sex objects ) must be understood as inseparable from CLASS oppression. It is NOT rooted in crude MALE psychology. To be sure , the oppression of an upper class woman like Lily Bart is very different from the oppression of working class women at the turn of the century in the USA. Irving Howe explains this very well in his long and thoughtful -and SENSITIVE - essay " The Middle Class Mind of Kate Millet ". He might have written a similar essay on the upper class mind ( until her fall ) of Lily Bart in Wharton's " House of Mirth ". No, MEN are not THE ENEMY !
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ReplyDeleteReaders of Edith Wharton's book " House of Mirth " might find very instructive about the New Feminism, Third Wave Feminism, an old but still very relevant essay ( 1970 ) by democratic socialist writer Irving Howe titled " The Middle Class Mind of Kate Millet " . Howe was critical of Millet's book " Sexual Politics " in which he explored the " Feminine Mystique " image of women in literature.
Irving Howe's scathing criticism of " bourgeois feminism " strike this democratic socialist as quite sound . The same criticism - influenced by traditional Marxist social philosophy - clearly applies to the vicious , fatuous " identity politics " of " liberal " , " progressive " Democrats today. It is silly to act as if the Civil Rights Movement was a failure and racism is programmed into the very DNA of white people.
Way back in 1965 Black Muslim leader Malcolm X made a connection between racism and capitalism, between racism and imperialism. Marxism explained how the special oppression and exploitation of women ( as sex objects ) must be understood as inseparable from CLASS oppression. It is NOT rooted in crude MALE psychology.
To be sure , the oppression of an upper class woman like Lily Bart is very different from the oppression of working class women at the turn of the century in the USA. Irving Howe explains this very well in his long and thoughtful -and SENSITIVE - essay " The Middle Class Mind of Kate Millet ". He might have written a similar essay on the upper class mind ( until her fall ) of Lily Bart in Wharton's " House of Mirth ".
No, MEN are not THE ENEMY !